Finally Green

Thankfully we made it out of the brutal winter that we had, and we're seeing green grass now. Unfortunately, some of the tighter mown areas (below 0.75") are having trouble making it into the new season. You may have noticed that we are in the process of re sodding the collars around the greens where the current turf is weak or non-existent. We are re sodding the collar with Zoysia Grass, which will benefit us in many ways. It will create a border to keep back encroaching Bermudagrass, It will also come out of dormancy earlier than Bermuda will, and hopefully it will provide a better playing surface for a collar mown at about 0.300".

You may have noticed that some of the areas in the fairways look a little sparse. Most of these areas are the same areas that We had trouble with two years ago. They seem pretty confined to landing areas and north facing slopes. Fortunately we have ryegrass out in these areas to fill in the gap for now. Unfortunately, the Ryegrass can help contribute to the fairways coming in slower than normal. The rye and bermuda are competing for food, water and sunlight. the bermuda will win the competition once the temperature gets high enough, and whatever can't stand the heat will be sprayed out by us to give the bermuda full reign of the tees and fairways.

Spring Green Up

Spring came early this year. I can't remember an April this hot and dry. The golf course is reflecting the weather we are going through. Club selection can be a little harder when your ball will get 20 yards more roll due to the firm fairways. Thankfully we are seeing temperatures that are below the 80 degree mark again. I think we actually hit 90 for a day or two around the middle of the month.

You may have noticed that our collars have some areas that do not want to grow in this spring. Some of these areas were weak last season but some areas were good and just don't seem to want to come back. I am attributing this to lack of fertility, traffic, and tighter mowing heights during an unseasonably cold winter (one that I am glad we are out of). We will start sodding some of theses areas in the next few weeks.

You may have also noticed the areas in the fairway and the rough, that are high traffic areas, that are not wanting to come back very well. Well, the only way I know to put it is that this is why we have cart path rules. Please follow the cart path rules. It's not a free-for-all after you hit the tee ball. I'll leave you with a image or two of what I'm speaking about.

Spring Aerification

Well it's that time of year, time to poke holes in the greens again.

I thought I'd take a minute and explain the process and why we do it. I know everyone hates playing on aerified greens, myself included, so why not give an explanation to why.

There are several reasons why we do this; to increase the oxygen available to the plant, relieve compaction, remove excess thatch in the soil, create a firm playing surface for the upcoming season.

First off, by removing cores of old soil from the greens we remove a percentage of thatch, dead organic material in the soil structure. The dead organic material, plant roots, clog up macro pores in the soil structure no longer allowing them them to hold oxygen. Once these macro pores have the dead material in them they are referred to as micro pores, which will really only hold water and will not allow the soil to become firm. We are replacing the old soil with sand. The sand has no thatch and lots of macro pores. This creates new channels for roots to grow freely down through the soil where they can still receive proper amounts of oxygen. Another benefit to these deep channels of macro pores is increased drainage. These large pores don't really hold water that well, they give surface water a better route to escape to the subsurface drainage.

I hope this gives anyone who's interested a better idea of why we go through this process every six months or so. We are scheduled to start on March 15th weather permitting. hopefully we will be grown in about 3 weeks later with a little help from Mother Nature.